How does the head of Americans United for Life feel in the wake of the biggest abortion decision in a decade? Here's what AUL Acting President and Senior Counsel Clarke Forsythe had to say:
Women lost today as the Supreme Court sides with the abortion industry ... Sadly, the commonsense laws that protect women in real, full service healthcare centers won't be in effect in Texas abortion clinics... In striking down these commonsense requirements, the Supreme Court has essentially accepted the abortion industry's argument that it should be allowed to keep its profits high and patient care standards low.
It would be difficult to stuff more falsehoods into a passage this short. The laws were not commonsense, they were nonsense. Don't take my word for it, read the decision:
We have found nothing in Texas' record evidence that shows that, compared to prior law (which required a "working arrangement" with a doctor with admitting privileges), the new law advanced Texas' legitimate interest in protecting women's health. We add that, when directly asked at oral argument
whether Texas knew of a single instance in which the new requirement would have helped even one woman obtain better treatment, Texas admitted that there was no evidence in the record of such a case.
Small wonder. As the Guttmacher Institute notes, "Abortion is one of the safest surgical procedures for women in the United States. Fewer than 0.5% of women obtaining abortions experience a complication, and the risk of death associated with abortion is about one-tenth that associated with childbirth." What's more, medical procedures far more dangerous, including birth itself, have no comparable regulations in Texas.
The case anti-abortion campaigners continually cite is the rogue abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, whose Pennsylvania clinic went uninspected for far too long. Once his misdeeds were discovered, Gosnell went to jail. But he was clearly the exception, for the record is clear: legal abortion has an excellent safety record. And, while there may be some for-profit abortion providers, the leading ones such as Planned Parenthood are nonprofits that struggle to make ends meet* -- thanks largely to continual harassment by crusading legislators, protesters, and terrorists.
In short, Forsythe's statement is a pack of lies. The icing on this layer cake of hypocrisy was provided by Texas governor Greg Abbott:
The decision erodes States' lawmaking authority to safeguard the health and safety of women and subjects more innocent life to being lost. Texas' goal is to protect innocent life, while ensuring the highest health and safety standards for women. [Emphasis added.]
So there you have it. The whole point of the TRAP laws enacted in Texas and 23 other states is to "protect innocent life" by fraud. Pious fraud, perhaps, but fraud all the same. The acronym tells the tale: TRAP stands for Targeted Regulation of Abortion Provider.
What's this got to do with religion? A lot. Most Americans feel that abortion is a distasteful, morally muddy procedure that should not be undertaken casually -- and yet, most Americans favor legal access to it. That has been true for decades. Those who oppose legal abortion are, with few exceptions, religious, and the more religious they are, the more fervent their opposition.
If you're among them, consider this. While the Bible says nothing directly about about abortion, its views on dishonesty rank among the Ten Commandments:
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. (Exodus 20:16, NRSV)
Just to make sure the point gets across, the Bible repeats it again and again. Here are a few more examples:
You shall not spread a false report. (Exodus 23:1, NRSV)
You shall not lie to one another.. (Leviticus 19:11)
This is God talkin', right? So if you take your religion seriously, you cannot possibly support the lie that these TRAP laws are about women's safety. They are about trying to deceptively deprive women of a fundamental right as declared by the Supreme Court. That is not how our democracy works. But more importantly for the religious, that's not how biblical fidelity works.
It's simple, really. Piety cannot justify a lie.
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* Full disclosure: Views are my own, but you may want to know that my spouse works for Planned Parenthood. Readers are welcome to explain how that changes any fact that I cite or conclusion I draw.